We return to our series on the Coal Wars of the United States with Bloody Harlan and the Battle for Evarts. Mine operators formed the 1 Harlan County Coal Operators Association and through this organization made collective decisions concerning the mines. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. She pays $10 a month for rent and $10 a month for electricity. The slab of slate, more than 51 feet long, and 17 feet wide and weighing tons, was dodged by two men. We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. Enforcing the operators' political will, both within and outside the law, was the Harlan County Coal Operators Association. They're trapped. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Thirty percent of the families lack automobiles. "Here at Brookside, if you called someone from SLU, he might come in a week, he might come in two weeks, but when he did come, he'd go into Eastover's office and talk for an hour," Bill Doan says. There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. USBM Final Investigation Report (1.7 Mb) Successful Rescue . Jacqueline Brophy is the daughter of Pat Brophy, who went into the mines when he was twelve, and who, in 1926, ran against John L. Lewis and lost. Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. The Citizens Inquiry meets in the attractive, river-rock Evarts Community Center, directly across the Clear Fork from the site of the 1931 "Battle of Evarts." Each contract varied from mine to mine. In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. . It does not store any personal data. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. The miners say that they want their own safety committee, elected by the miners, as the standard UMW contract provides, with the right to walk out, losing their pay, when there is eminent danger in the mine. An open shop is where union membership is allowed but not mandated to work at that location. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. The Sheriff reportedly got rich on payoffs from the companies, and he used 181 mine company gunmen as special deputies. Tuesday morning: Norman Yarborough has agreed to meet some of our group. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? While it succeeded in organizing thousands of miners, it failed to complete a bargaining agreement with Harlan County's coal operators. One of the towns that were a refuge was Evarts, Kentucky. Bobby's wife, Becky, who died in 2013, was a lifelong advocate for the people of Harlan County. ", Bill Doan says that he was hurt in a rockfall at 7:15 one morning and that he didn't get out of the mine until nine o'clock. "We could lay down, fight the police, or let them scabs go to work. Toilet paper clings to the bushes and tree limbs five or six feet up from the rushing stream. Grace Elizabeth Hale. Each of us makes a statement. Unlike the previous Coal Wars that took place in West Virginia with the Paint-Creek Strike of 1912 and Matewan that lasted for a year or two. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. On Jan. 25, 1890, a new union, the United Mine Workers of America, was formed, and in 1903 its young president, John Mitchell, led the union on a successful 24-week strike. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. "I cain't get a job nowhere in this county. How does the Harlan County Coal Operators Association fit into the picture? Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. 2012: $1,552,717. The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP) was of the American Communist Party. "I don't know nothing about the electrical part." It is not all Duke's fault by any means. ", What about the Southern Labor Union? All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. 5355, atEvarts . Available for both RF and RM licensing. At Brookside, this would amount to $400,000 a year. June 17th of that same year, the first strike was over as the last miner had returned to work. Done Citation. Conflict broke out again the 1970s in what was known as the Brookside strike. And I can't get you off of that couch. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." Overturned car bodies everywhere. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." I have also attended the University of Pikeville. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. Name Entry; Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. The local grand jury returned an indictment against Dreiser for adultery, but by that time Dreiser had finished his work and had left the county on the train. We are joined by Bernie Aaronson, the young public relations director of the UMW, and John Ed Pierce, a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Breaks in the cable, they say, are often just wrapped with mask-ing tape and exposed again to the water. He discusses the formation and activities of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association . There's water in the mine because the pumps often won't work. The miners charge that Eastover has hired what they call "gun thugs." I have attended the University of Kentucky. They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Word precedes him. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. There is a hard edge in her voice, and her blue-gray eyes are flashing. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. On one excuse or another, such as not having personnel readily available to accompany the inspector into the mine, the company can delay the inspection. "Try walking out of there, carrying a man with a broken back," one of the miners says. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. Under this Act, the right to organize in ones workplace was granted as well as it outlawed any discrimination whether employed or seeking employment based on union membership. Our driver points out Norman Yarborough's two-story frame house, across the highway from the camp and up out of the river bottom. Here, too, are some of the richest natural resources in the countryand some of the poorest people. Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. McDonald's. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . 1938) Copy Citation . "Yarborough says he just don't want nobody tellin' him how to run his mine," Deaton says. These interviews with major coal operators document their personal histories and the history of the coal industry in eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. It took forty-five minutes for someone to come and help get him out, Deaton says. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. Theoretically, even operators' and owners' children were . Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. There are very few vacant houses in the county. In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. I've got five living children and four dead. I'm standing at 2800 feet above sea level. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. 3.' Blair. Garbage along the roadside. The Three Point disaster was the worst suffered in the county since December 9, 1932, when 23 men were killed in an explosion in "Zero" Mine of Harlan Fuel Company, Yancey. The group publishes policy papers on the benefits of coal for Kentucky and sponsors the "Friends of Coal" initiative. the meeting room. Big Boy. Does the Association hire for all the mines in the county? They relate federal mine-safety figures which show that in 1971 the accident rate in the Brookside mine was three times the national average, and in 1972 was twice the national average. "Roof falls are a constant hazard, but the bosses just keep on rushin'.". [videorecording] Contributor(s): Kopple, Barbara; First-Run Features (Firm) Cabin Creek Films; Publication details: New York : First Run Features, 1976. . 1 mine in Evarts, in Harlan County, Kentucky. On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A . Biographical History . It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. Pic from Harlan County USA of a Coal Camp. And, all around, there are the rolling mountains, covered with second-growth timber. Mr. Blanton explained the reasoning behind coal camps. Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". The men's life depended on my job, but I knowed if I protested I'd a got fired. Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? Soon after the "Battle of Evarts," novelist Theodore Dreiser led a citizens' group to Harlan County to find and publicize the bloody facts. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. He fined the UMW $20,000. She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. In one of these, the septic tank has been out of order for several months. "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . Over one thousand shots were exchanged during those fifteen minutes. Another press member criticizes Barbara Bode for having raised a clenched fist during the women's testimony. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. Mr. Nolan, a resident of Cawood, is survived by his wife, Mrs. Stella Nolan . There were ten lodges that were chartered for the National Miners Union. Three Harlan County incorporated towns were not owned by the coal mines, they became a sanctuary for the evicted and starving miners. Apparently, this is one of Eastover's major objections. He says that, standing. Violence erupted that would periodically repeat itself for the next eight years. They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. Wanted to be able to spend their money at a store of their choice besides the Black Mountain Coal Company store. "We took the sticks with us," she says. Others say they intend to speak and write about what they have heard. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. Seen 'em carried out on a stretcher," she says. Some of the women say they haven't had a drink of water since moving to the Brookside camp. A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). It doesn't seem like enough. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. You come out of there lookin' like a hog that's been rootin' in the mud.' Dateline Newport News, Virginia, November 12, 1931: Dreiser denies the charge and says he wants people to concentrate on the facts of the labor dispute and "get the American mind off sex for a moment." And, even so, it usually takes forty-five minutes to an hour for the inspector to get from mine entrance to the face of the coal. The miners say that, somehow, management always knows when the government inspectors are coming. This was thirteen percent of the workers showing up for their scheduled work times. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. Did she find the stick on the ground? The Kentucky mining camps still had the paternalism idea in their mists and the ever-independent Appalachian people were not having it. There is a suit still in litigation. Leroy Helton says miners often have to splice electrical cable, even though they're not qualified to do so. I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . Capitalizing on the general . Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. More than twenty-four babies out of a thousand die before they are one year old, and the expenditure per child in the public schools is one-half the national average. On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. Why couldn't Eastover live with the same national UMW contract that so many other companies have accepted? Harlan County to unionize miners. They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. By 1908 the union had . Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. He says that he will not agree to the Brookside contract applying to "all" of Eastover's operations. Lois Scott explains that during the first confrontation at the mine, she saw a pistol in the front seat of every "scab" car she looked into and that a company "gun thug" pointed a submachine gun at the women from the porch of the Eastover office. Following this episode, the women say, Norman Yarborough asked Judge Hogg to hold the UMW and a number of miners and women in contempt of the Judge's order limiting the number of picketers to six. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. Captain James Cromer of the state police later tells news reporters, "The women are a problem. "I've seen some hurt and some killed. Bobby Simpson, 79, has been blind for more than a half-century, but still managed to shovel coal. Up at seven on a Monday morning, I walk out onto the balcony of my motel room. Strikebreakers were often beaten. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. But negotiations for a contract with Eastover soon broke down, and on July 30 the miners at Brookside began the strike that now, as we arrive, is in its eighth month. . The women furnish the panel with a copy of a report from the Harlan County Health Department, dated October 12, 1973, which states that the drinking water in the Eastover mining camp, where approximately thirty of the striking Brookside families live, is "highly contaminated" with fecal bacteria. "They don't want miners havin' any say in safety." The roof is approximately forty-eight inches high in the mine. KCA's constitution and by-laws were adopted on April 28, 1947, "to promote the best interest of the coal mining industry in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and all those engaged therein". The records show that Beach was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1954 and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary, that he was later charged with carrying a concealed pistol (no disposition shown), and that in 1966 he was tried and acquitted on a murder charge. These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Herndon J. Evans, the editor of the Pineville Sun, argued, The troubles of the coal industry had their inception in war times. Nannie Rainey says, "I told him if he got my children, he was gonna haveta take me too." Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. If you protested this safety violation, he says, "the boss would just say, 'Run it.'" Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. Abstract. Former Director of Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. Afterwards, they gathered near the picket line at the Eastover property in Brookside. If those under them behave in an approved manner then they receive housing, work, food, and other perks of their position. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. When they went to jail, they say, some of the women took their children with them. The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Back in my motel room, a gathering place, Bernie Aaronson of UMW says that the union is paying strike benefits and medical bills for the 160 strikers. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". If any attractive woman became interested in me, I'd think it was a very lovely thing. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . These battles will end the Coal Wars proper. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). Evarts welcomed the miners because it was filled with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores and company men in political positions vanish. Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Our drive takes us upstream along the yellow-brown Clear Fork River. Its initial land holdings were in the Irwin gas coal basin in Westmoreland County, but as these were exhausted the company purchased 14,000 acres of undeveloped coal land along the border of Boone and Logan Counties in West Virginia in 1923-28. . Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". "I don't like to handle that raw juice," he says. I can see twenty-five miles to the southeast, five ridges. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." Carl Horn of Duke Power and Arnold Miller of the UMW had talked, and negotiations had been resumed. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. No concessions or deals were made between the two factions and the membership of the United Mine Workers union plummeted. Interview Summary. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". Yarborough replies. Interviews with residents of Hazard who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners faced from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes that are being organized in Hazard County. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . (The union has told us that they are quite willing to limit the contract to the Brookside mine.) (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) The women are nervous about testifying, afraid of retaliation. Pierce mentions the "toothpick incident." Burger Chef. The most shocking moment in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) looks at first like an abstract painting. After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. These disputes were still brewing when on December 8, 1934, the United Mine Workers Union was threatened by deputies and mine bosses. One night, they saw a secretary for the Dreiser group enter Dreiser's hotel room, and they placed toothpicks against the door to determine whether she ever came back out during the night. Outlining the legal framework for labor unions and management relations to improve the working conditions for workers. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . During the Great Depression of the 1930s coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky, struck against the coal operators for better pay and better working conditio. B.W. We huddle before breaking up. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. And always there is a murky roadside stream, beech and sycamore trees lining its banks. Project Summary. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to . The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. Lois Scott says that the women organized the Brookside Women's Club and got involved in the strike "because we knew that if the women didn't come in there would be violence." If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. In response to the violence, the Kentucky National Guard was called upon and arrived for the first time in the county to try to stem the violence. Why is garbage left on the roadway? Since the county began mining, over one billion tons of coal have This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. The Kentucky Coal Association is an IRS designated 501 (c) (6) nonprofit organization that aims to educate its members and the public of coal production and safety in the state of Kentucky. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. McQueen says that in late 1972 he burned his fingers to the bone on a switchbox where a blown fuse had been hot-wired. They had no safety committee, the miners say, and the federal reports bear them out. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. As in Germany, the AFSC used need alone to determine who got fed. 5355 after Local Union 4495 at Black Mountain folded up. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. In Harlan County on July 7, 1935, during a celebration of the Wagner Act, a group of disgruntled deputies severely beat up several miners and dispersed the crowd. "Yeah," a coal miner says, "but the land's so poor, you can't hardly raise an umbrella on it.".
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